A Song for Bijou

by Josh Farrar

  “We go to the Gran Bwa, the drum circle.” Jou Jou raises the rada and plays a flourish on the cow-skin drumhead with his right hand. “Can’t you tell?” I try to catch my brother’s eye. He is being a bit too friendly with these two. Can’t he tell I want to make this visit we are having as brief as possible?

  “Oh yeah,” Nomura says. “We just passed it. Those guys are loud!”

  “Not loud, my friend. These are master drummers playing over there.” He shifts the drum from one arm to the other. “Hey, you want to join us? I promise, you will love it.”

  I jab Jou Jou in the ribs, but he just laughs, enjoying my discomfort. He is evil sometimes, my brother. How does he know Alex and Nomura will “love” the rara? Most Americans hate our music, call it a bunch of noise.

  “I’ll go!” says Alex, a bit too much excitement coming through, which, of course, makes him blush bright red, like he did at the dance.

  “That’s the attitude, man,” says Jou Jou. “And how about you, John?”

  “Actually, I’m late already. Got to get home.” Nomura looks quickly to his friend, then smiles with satisfaction. “Alex, tell me all about it, cool?”

  “Uh, sure,” Alex says.

  “Is this a good idea, Jou Jou?” I ask, hoping that there may still be a way out of this, even if it makes me seem a bit cruel. “Will Rara Gran Bwa want outsiders to hear their rehearsal?”

  “Maybe I should head back, myself,” Alex says. “If it’s a rehearsal.”

  “Sister, you well know it’s no rehearsal today. Alex, come on, you going to be my personal guest. All right?”

  “Okay,” Alex says, smiling but still looking a little scared.

  “It’s settled, then,” Jou Jou says, shaking Nomura’s hand good-bye. I’m going to kill him later. “John, we meet again sometime soon, all right? It’s always a pleasure to meet my little sister’s schoolmates.”

  “Later,” Alex says. He and my brother wave good-bye to Nomura as he rides away.

  “Bye!” Nomura calls from behind his back, whizzing away toward home. I wish I could race home on a bike and leave my brother and the boy to become friends for life.

  “All right, Alex, come with us,” Jou Jou says. “You’re in for a treat.” He swings the rada around, playing a beat with his calloused palms. He leans over toward me and whispers, “I do this for you, Bijou. Looks like in Port-au-Prince you forgot how to make new friends.” I’ll get him for this when we get home.

  When we arrive, we see a circle of ten or twelve men, all Haitian, in a shady grove of trees between the bike path and Parkside Avenue. About twice as many people look on, moving their bodies to the rhythm. “Hey, Jou Jou!” two or three of the musicians call out as he joins the line of three other drummers. Now I am alone with Alex, and I try to guess what he is thinking. He’s probably never been to the Caribbean part of Flatbush before, and he’s certainly never joined the scary Haitians beating on their animal skins in the middle of Prospect Park.

  I glance at him, though, and see no fear on his face at all. Listening to the music, he looks relaxed, happy. This means, at least, that I don’t have to struggle to think of things to say to him; for the moment he is absorbed by something other than me or his own embarrassment. I cross my arms and try to calm myself enough to enjoy Rara Gran Bwa, which is, after all, the reason I came here in the first place—to hear my brother play the music he loves with all his heart.

  Some of the musicians are as young as Jou Jou, others as old as thirty or forty, each of them holding at least one instrument. In the center of everything is a tall, skinny man, wearing white pants with the Rara Gran Bwa logo stitched in bright yellow letters up and down the legs. The man wears a knit cap on top of a mountain of dreadlocks and rubs a small stick against what looks like a shaker of salt. He makes swift, buzzing patterns, eyes closed like he is praying.

  Other men play snare and tom-tom; maracas; a graj, which looks like a cheese grater; and other percussion instruments. To their left, four more guys stand shoulder to shoulder and play the crying melodies I love on the konet, a long metal trumpet with a bell at its end.

  “What does ‘Gran Bwa’ mean?” Alex asks.

  “It come from the French, ‘Grand Bois,’” I say.

  “Great woods?”

  “I forgot, you know French,” I say. Alex smiles, looking a little proud. “It’s more like ‘great tree,’ though. Or ‘big tree.’ “ Still a trace of a smile on his lips. It is a nice smile. He is a handsome boy, I can’t help notice. “So, this place is named after the Haitian spirit Gran Bwa. He’s very important in vodou, and the band pick him as their patron spirit. Gran Bwa look like a giant tree. You see that rock over there, with the face carved into it?”

  Alex arches his neck to get a view of the Gran Bwa sculpture to the right of the band. “Yeah, I see it. That’s him?”

  “Yes. You can see how powerful he is, how fierce. Gran Bwa has control over all the wilderness. So he is a bit wild and unpredictable. Filled with energy and magic, too. Like the music, no?”

  I nod to Jou Jou, who works his mouth along with the thick rhythm, like chewing beef jerky. His dreadlocks, not quite shoulder-length yet, dance along in time. Maybe this is what Gran Bwa would have looked like when he was here on Earth, filled with life and unpredictable energy. The sky is almost completely dark now. The snare drummer bobs his shoulders, and the sax player leans back, exposing his throat. The man playing the salt shaker dances toward the middle of the circle, wearing the grin of an elf, full of mischief. “Whoa-ah! Come on, come on!” he shouts, pushing the musicians to play louder, tighter.

  “That’s Fabian, the one with the knit cap,” I lean over and tell Alex. “He started Rara Gran Bwa, long time ago. He’s the leader.”

  “Yeah, I can tell,” he whispers. “He’s amazing. He’s just playing that little salt shaker, but he’s incredible. It’s like he’s conducting.”

  “That’s right,” I say, smiling. “Exactly.”

  For a moment, Jou Jou looks at Alex and me again, or maybe at a spot of the tree directly behind us. He bobs his head left and right, sometime closing his eyes, so deeply under the music’s spell, the crazy fool doesn’t seem to recognize his own sister.

  “How long has he been playing the drums?” Alex asks me.

  “About three years now, I think. I’m not sure, exactly. He came to America four years before me.”

  “That’s all, a few years? He’s so good!”

  “Rara music, if you’re Haitian, it’s in your blood. Jou Jou, he pick up the rhythms faster than most. An outsider would never learn so quick, but he’s been hearing the music his whole life.”

  “He’s fantastic. They all are. I’ve never heard anything like it. Do they teach it in the schools there?”

  “Rara? In the schools? They would never allow it. Rara is street music. My grandfather, my mother, my uncle … they hate this music. They think Jou Jou throw away his life by doing this.”

  “Really? What’s wrong with it? It’s just … music.”

  “Yes, but to them it’s musique démoniaque. Devil’s music, you see?”

  “Not really.”

  “The Christians in Haiti, they think the people who make this music in Haiti for centuries are the low people, the poor. They think this music, it is vodou music that the uneducated and ignorant use to call bad spirits.”

  “And Haitians here in Brooklyn think that, too?”

  “Some of them, yes. Mostly the older ones, like my uncle.” Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. Too private. It is not good to talk badly about an elder.

  “That’s too bad.”

  He shakes his head. Maybe he doesn’t believe that anyone could hold such harsh opinions about something as innocent as music. It’s only sound floating on the air, after all. But this is another thing about Americans I have noticed: they want to think everyone around them is so happy, living in harmony. They choose not to see the walls that separate people from each other, these walls that exist
everywhere one cares to look.

  In another minute, the song continues with four long blasts from the konets. Fabian, dancing and calling out from the center of the circle, tosses his head into the air to cue that the end is near and finally kicks powerfully with his right leg. The entire band syncs when he brings his foot to the ground, and the piece is complete. The spectators, including Alex and me, erupt in cheers.

  “Do they ever play concerts?” Alex asks. “You know, in clubs or wherever?”

  Suddenly, I remember what it felt like the first time Alex spoke to me, before those cruel boys teased him about the cards. I had forgotten how nice the conversation was, before others had to spoil it.

  “In the past, they play lots of house parties. Like, in the community, here in Flatbush. And benefit concerts for kids, things like this to buy presents for them at Christmas, you know. But now, since the earthquake, they getting much more popular. Clubs in Brooklyn and Manhattan, good clubs. They might even be invited to the New Orleans Jazz Festival this year. We will see.”

  Jou Jou approaches us, his expression soft and relaxed again, as it was during our walk.

  “What you think, sister?” he asks, kissing me on both cheeks.

  “Très bien, Jou Jou. Beautiful. Rara Gran Bwa sound fantastic, as always.”

  “And you, Alex? You like the music?”

  “Yeah, it was incredible,” Alex says. “You guys are amazing. My sister plays the cello. But it’s nothing like this!”

  Jou Jou rears his head back to laugh. “Now that’s some positive feedback, man. Thank you. I like this boy, Bijou. He’s good.”

  I grit my teeth and let the comment pass. Now I know he’s trying to torture me.

  “Do you guys rehearse a lot?” Alex asks.

  “Well, this isn’t a practice. This just a little jam session at the Gran Bwa here. But yeah, we practice, too, over on Church Avenue. You should come sometime.”

  “I’d like to.”

  “Jou Jou, we not done yet, man,” says Darly, the petwo player. He wears a sour look on his face, as always. “Get back here.”

  “Yes, man, I’m comin’,” Jou Jou says. He gives us a look of pretend-scared, rolls his eyes, and heads back toward the band.

  “Okay, get in here, brothers,” Fabian says, kneeling and extending his hand. The band members surround him like football players in a huddle. “One band, one sound!”

  The band repeats, “One band, one sound!”

  Fabian yells, “Rara, Rara, Rara Gran Bwa!”

  And the band repeats, “Rara, Rara, Rara Gran Bwa!”

  Alex’s phone buzzes: a text. “Oops, that’s my mom,” he says. “I’ve gotta get going.”

  “Time for dinner?” I ask.

  “Yep. I didn’t realize how late it had gotten.”

  I look at my watch: 8:15. “Oh no, me too!” If I don’t get home in fifteen minutes, my uncle will go crazy. And it’s more than a mile’s walk to get home. Forgetting about Alex for the moment, I wave to get Jou Jou’s attention. “Jou Jou! We need to get out of here, and right now!”

  “Okay, okay!” Jou Jou calls back, laughing as usual, not one concern in the world. “J’arrive, j’arrive!” I’m coming.

  Finally, after a few high fives with his bandmates, my brother is by my side. We say a quick good-bye to Alex, and we are running, running, racing to get home before my uncle’s deadline.

  12

  Making the Call

  Nomura, Ira, and I eat our lunches on the roof playground, looking down on the shops of Montague Street while a bunch of sixth graders play handball behind us. Last year, the three of us were obsessed with handball, lining up along with every other guy in our class for a chance to take on the champion (usually Trevor or Greg Vargas, and every once in a while, Nomura, who sports a wicked backhand). Now, the sixth graders look silly for being so into it. Why do they care so much about such a stupid game?

  We peer through the bars of the rooftop fence, and I tell Ira and Nomura everything that happened at the park.

  “She really kissed you?” Ira asks, eyes bugging.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I mean, it happened pretty quickly. But … yeah.” Was it a “real” kiss, though? When you’ve never been kissed before, it’s hard to know.

  “You don’t sound so sure,” Nomura says. “Was it on the lips, or was it like the type of kiss your grandmother would give you?”

  “Gross!” Ira says, and we all laugh.

  “No lips, just a kiss on the cheek,” I say. “But she did it twice.”

  “For real?” Ira says. “Twice?”

  “Yeah.” I remember the way she turned each cheek toward me, like she was offering me a small gift. And I remember the smell of her, like flowers, and almonds, and shampoo.

  “Why would she kiss you twice, though?” Ira asks.

  I shrug. Once, twice, who cares? But I hope there are more kisses in my near future. I hope not for two, but for two hundred, two thousand, and beyond.

  “I wouldn’t get too excited about it,” Nomura says. “It’s probably what everybody does in Haiti. You know, to say hello and good-bye.”

  “Could be.” I hadn’t thought about that before; it could only be a custom. Does that mean it was no big deal for her to kiss me? It definitely felt like a big deal to me.

  “That’s how the French do it,” Nomura says.

  “ ‘Do it,’ ” Ira repeats, making it sound dirty and weird.

  “Shut up,” I say, punching him in the arm. “Don’t talk about it like that.”

  “God,” he says, rubbing the sore spot. “You didn’t have to hit me.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “But can you please try to be cool about this?”

  Ira doesn’t say a thing, and I can tell he has no idea what I mean. Asking him to be cool is like asking him to speak fluent Mandarin; it’s a skill he simply doesn’t have.

  I turn to Nomura. “The French kiss on both sides of the cheek, every time they say hello and good-bye? That sounds like an awful lot of work.”

  He shrugs. “It’s just the way things are over there.”

  “Doesn’t ‘French kiss’ mean you use your tongue?” asks Ira. We ignore him.

  “During the kiss,” I remember, picturing it in my head, “she kind of rested her hand on my shoulder.”

  “Huh? How do you mean?” Nomura asks.

  “You want me to show you?”

  “Umm, no, not really!” Nomura laughs. Then he pushes his glasses up higher on his nose and says, “Do you mean she kind of leaned on you for balance?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I hate how he breaks everything down until it sounds so practical and rational. In his way of looking at things, the kiss didn’t mean anything. But it did mean something to me, and now I feel like my best friend is taking it away from me.

  “Listen, Mr. Logical,” I say. “I was there. You weren’t. There was a … feeling. She felt so … close to me.”

  “You should have grabbed her and French-kissed her right there!” Ira yells. Before I can even think of punching his arm, he holds up his hands defensively. “Sorry, sorry!” he says.

  I shake my head. When’s he going to grow up?

  “So, when are you going to ask her out?” Nomura asks.

  “What? You mean, on a date?” I say.

  “Of course, on a date. What else?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t think—”

  “Trust me, this is the move now.” Nomura is in full-on expert mode. Where does he get this stuff? “This is what you have to do.”

  “Like you’ve ever gone on a date. Or even asked for one. You’re giving me the same advice that you’ve seen best friends give in every bad romance movie you’ve ever seen.”

  “I don’t watch romance movies.”

  “You totally do! You cried at the end of The Notebook. Which sucked, by the way.”

  “I’ve never even seen that movie.”

  “Right. I’ll bet you could recite it line for line.”

 
“Anyway, none of this changes the fact that my advice is a hundred percent sound,” Nomura says. Now he’s cramming his face with Fig Newtons. It annoys me how casual he is, as if we’re talking about a homework assignment. It’s my life we’re discussing here.

  “And now’s the time to act. I mean, just call her.”

  “But I don’t have her number.”

  Nomura sighs like a bored teacher, tired of explaining the same concept for the thousandth time. “Of course you do.”

  “Uh, no. I’m pretty sure I don’t.”

  “Alex,” Nomura says, “aren’t Ira and I your best friends?”

  Ira looks over at me, wondering if it’s still true. “Yes,” I say, and he smiles, happy to be reassured. “Of course.”

  “And as your best friends, don’t you think we’re going to do everything in our power to help you out?”

  “Well, yeah, I guess. But … how?”

  “We got her number.” Nomura looks superproud.

  “Really? How?”

  Nomura laughs and reads it to me. “I’ve got my sources,” he says, by which he means Mary Agnes, I’m guessing. “Now it’s your move.”

  “Go for it,” says Ira.

  At home, all I can do for an entire twenty-five minutes is stare at the phone. Am I really going to call? It’s a bold move, and one that could easily backfire.

  I look at my phone as if seeing it for the first time. The cleanly polished surface, with my own reflection staring back at me. The shiny power button.

  Twenty-five minutes can sure go slowly when you’re trying to make a decision.

  I go to the kitchen and make myself a chicken sandwich. I spread the mustard as slowly as I can, trying to buy time, trying to think. I put on lettuce and some sharp cheddar. I cut the wheat bread into halves with a knife with teeth on it.

  I pour myself a Pepsi from the bottle and drink it.

  Then, I think, Why not a cup of tea? Even though I never drink tea. But drinking tea is good for thinking and making decisions, so I let it brew, nice and slow.